


everywhere you've been with me all along

by mosaicofhearts



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, First Kiss, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Slow Dancing, Tenderness, the other losers are present but background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25113286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosaicofhearts/pseuds/mosaicofhearts
Summary: “Are you out of your Goddamn mind?” Illusion-Eddie says, making that sound that’s halfway between a huff and a click of his tongue; the sound he makes when he’s annoyed, or when Richie’s just said something he thinks is really stupid, like last week when they’d been chatting on the phone for an hour and he’d saidit should have been me, and Eddie had been mad. So mad. Richie hadn’t heard him that mad before, not even when they’d been dragged all the way back to Derry to possibly die.“Probably,” Richie says weakly. He has one hand still curled around the edge of the door from where he’d ran over in his haste to open it, the other leaning his entire weight against the door jamb. It’s starting to shake. “The fact that I’m hallucinating right now proves that, right? That can’t be, like, something a personintheir Goddamn mind would do.”---The losers help Richie celebrate the life of Maggie Tozier. Eddie just gets there a bit earlier, that's all.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 37
Kudos: 234





	everywhere you've been with me all along

**Author's Note:**

> i woke up today wanting to write richie and eddie dancing, and this somehow happened instead. this is unbeta'd because i wrote it in a day, so forgive me for any mistakes.
> 
> please heed the tags and these warnings: this does deal with the death of a parent (richie's mother) and revolves strongly around a funeral and a wake, with obvious themes of grief. but it is just very, very soft, i promise, and not too sad (i hope)!
> 
> full disclosure, i took a lot of inspo from my grandmother's funeral during which my cousins and i danced to whitney houston, accidentally played 'another one bites the dust' on blast, and laughed so hard we cried. technically, this one is for her.
> 
> as always, feedback is encouraged and appreciated!

“Am I hallucinating?”

Richie squeezes his eyes shut tightly, counting slowly from zero to ten before he reopens them, in the hopes that the hallucination will have dissipated. It hasn’t.

It’s been a rough few weeks. Rough enough that he justifies whatever is happening right now as  _ reasonable _ , if not slightly terrifying. He lets his mind ramble through the side effects of grief, the ones that his therapist had patiently ran over with him on multiple occasions, even when he had returned her kindness by making rude comments marred with hiccups as he’d cried for uncomfortably long periods of time on her sofa. There’d been snot everywhere by the time he was done (he still feels bad about that). Hallucinations. He doesn’t think the possibility of hallucinating was even mentioned to him once, and it seems like a pretty important side effect to forget. One of the big ones. One of the ones that comes with a yellow warning sign and a red alarm that shrieks  _ helphelphelphelp _ intermittently, alerting everyone in the vicinity to the fact that  _ this man is having a breakdown _ !

God, he really doesn’t want anyone to know he’s hallucinating. That could be a monumental fuck up on his part.

The image of Eddie in front of him scowls. He looks way too solid to be a hallucination; Richie’s brain must be  _ good _ at this. This hallucinating thing. The more he dwells on that thought, the less good it seems.

“Are you out of your Goddamn mind?” Illusion-Eddie says, making that sound that’s halfway between a huff and a click of his tongue; the sound he makes when he’s annoyed, or when Richie’s just said something he thinks is really stupid, like last week when they’d been chatting on the phone for an hour and he’d said  _ it should have been me _ , and Eddie had been mad. So mad. Richie hadn’t heard him that mad before, not even when they’d been dragged all the way back to Derry to possibly  _ die _ . 

“Probably,” Richie says weakly. He has one hand still curled around the edge of the door from where he’d ran over in his haste to open it, the other leaning his entire weight against the door jamb. It’s starting to shake. “The fact that I’m hallucinating right now proves that, right? That can’t be, like, something a person  _ in _ their Goddamn mind would do.”

Illusion-Eddie’s eyebrows perform a seriously impressive feat of acrobatics, brow creasing ferociously over eyes that somehow grow even more circular than they usually are. He seems to realise that Richie isn’t  _ kidding _ , that he’s onto him, and he pauses where he’s been wrestling with an oversized suitcase that looks like it weighs twice as much as he does.

“Richie,” Illusion-Eddie says softly, eyes suddenly sad and downcast and God, that’s so much worse than the annoyance. Richie knows how to handle Eddie’s annoyance. He doesn’t know what to do with an Eddie that is looking at him  _ like that _ even if this isn’t even a real Eddie. “Richie, you’re not hallucinating.”

Richie swallows. “I’m not?”

Eddie sighs. “No, Richie, you’re not. Can you let me in now? You’re a terrible fucking host.”

Richie goes easily to the side, creating space for Eddie to brush past him like a man on a mission, dragging that ridiculous suitcase into Richie’s apartment after him. Richie watches him go, standing there with the door wide open spilling into the hallway for a few moments too long before he’s letting it shut with some finality, scratching at his head when he turns to Eddie.

Eddie who is real.

Eddie who is, apparently, not a figment of Richie’s imagination, or whatever a hallucination actually is. He doesn’t know. It’s not like he’s all that accustomed to experiencing them.

“Okay, Eddie…” he tries it out slowly, like he’s still not quite sure of it. He isn’t. He’s not all that convinced that this Eddie  _ is _ real. It seems a stupid fucking thing to be uncertain about, but he can’t dwell on that when Eddie is standing in his living room and looking at him expectantly. “Not that this isn’t… great… but what are you doing here, exactly?”

“I’m here for the funeral.” Eddie frowns, throwing one of his hands forward in the universal sign for  _ duh _ .

“Okay,” Richie repeats. “But… the funeral isn’t now. And it isn’t happening in my apartment.”

“No shit, Richard. I thought she was getting buried right here underneath the fucking rug.”

“That’s morbid, man, what the fuck?”

“It’s  _ sarcasm _ , jackass. Obviously I know the funeral isn’t happening here. What am I? An idiot? Is that what I am to you?”

A fountain of laughter bubbles precariously in Richie’s chest. He scrubs a hand over his face because he can’t quite believe that he’s actually having this conversation right now, with Eddie. With Eddie in his apartment in Chicago. “Can we pull it back a little? I’m... honestly, I don’t know what the fuck is happening right now.”

“Clearly.” Eddie sighs, but he doesn’t sound mad now. The irate tension has disappeared almost as fast as it had arrived, the line of his shoulders tilting down. He looks at Richie and then nods, almost to himself. “I figured I’d come early, stay here with you. Help you prepare for the funeral.” 

_ Because you look like you need it _ . He doesn’t have to say it; Richie can hear it anyway, clear as day in the concern that Eddie wears like a second skin. It touches at his eyes, soft skin there creasing and tense, pulls the corners of his lips down and in. Richie wants to reach across and smooth over the wrinkles and gather those lips into a smile, to see him happy.

Eddie  _ is _ happier now; healthier too than he was when they were in Derry. He’d gone home and changed his life, even when everyone (Richie included) had thought that he wouldn’t.  _ No way _ , Richie had thought at the time. He hadn’t wanted to think it, but he had taken one look at the beaten down posture of Eddie’s body, at the inhaler that he had still had a death grip on, fingers turning white beneath the skin with the force of it, at the grim certainty he had swallowed like a pill knowing he’d be returning to New York, and Richie had thought it.  _ No way _ . He wouldn’t have blamed him, either. Guy’d been married his whole life to the same woman, had been doing the same damn job since college, had been sat at the same desk in the same office for the better part of that, and sometimes rocking the boat feels like a mistake that will upend you with nothing left to reach for.

He’d proven them all wrong though, in the end. Eddie had gone home, gotten an apartment, gotten a divorce, and quit his job, in that order. He hadn’t told them about the divorce until it had all gone through. He had needed to know that it was actually happening; he hasn’t told them as much, but Richie knows it anyway. Twenty seven years of forgetting, and Richie still knows Eddie better than he’s ever known anyone. Should have guessed then, really, that Eddie would turn his own life inside out and come out the other side better for it. Should have known that Eddie always did have more guts than any of them.

Mostly, Richie just hadn’t wanted to let himself hope. It was easier when Eddie was still married and still impossibly straight and still miles away from Richie in Chicago.

Eddie’s been happier. He doesn’t look so happy standing here in front of Richie right now.

“Can you stop doing that?” Richie asks tiredly.

Eddie has the good grace to look confused. “Doing what?”

“That  _ thing _ ,” Richie says. He gestures towards the general direction of Eddie’s face, fluttering his hands about. “With your eyes.”

The reaction is instantaneous; Eddie goes from looking doe-eyed and sorrowful to horrifically offended. His jaw drops for a moment, before it snaps shut with an audible click. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Richie? Are you actually on drugs? Is this why you thought you were hallucinating?”

“No, man, what - ?” He has to sit down, so he does, throwing himself into an unceremonious heap onto the nearest couch. It’s some kind of special foam that’s firm and melds to his body, but also makes him bounce a little, too. “I mean - yeah, actually,” Eddie looks horrified at the admission, so he continues in a rush. “- but nothing that’s not prescribed.”

It doesn’t seem to appease him that much. “ _ Have _ you been having hallucinations?”

Richie wants to disappear into the couch, right into the space between the cushions where he usually finds odd coins and ticket stubs that have fallen out of his pockets. He sinks his head backwards instead, covering his eyes. “Let’s just forget that whole thing happened. You caught me at the wrong time, Eds.

“Clearly.” Eddie says again, like he’s intent on letting Richie know that he thinks he’s an idiot, like he doesn’t do this every single day anyway.

Honestly. Richie doesn’t know why he likes him so much. Loving Eddie Kaspbrak is an exercise in masochism.

Except he  _ does _ know why he likes him so much, and it has nothing to do with masochism and everything to do with the fact that Eddie Kaspbrak has had his heart ever since they were thirteen years old, unbeknownst to both of them until very recently. Still unbeknownst to one of them, but at least Richie isn’t avoiding the truth anymore. Years of chasing after short, dark-haired men who would just as soon bite him as kiss him all makes sense now. Richie wants warm, wide brown eyes and careful, deft hands with nimble fingers on him every day. He wants Eddie’s incessant nagging in his ear from the moment he wakes up until the moment he sleeps. He wants to feel lithe, muscular thighs around his much softer and much wider ones, wants to feel the thrum of the pulse in his neck between his teeth; want nothing more than to discover what Eddie would taste like mid-argument, halted by a surprise press of lips against his own, swallowing down words that he’ll forget to say because Richie is kissing him and he likes it and -

Richie’s head is a kaleidoscope of wildly impossible daydreams as of late, and he wants to disappear into it at all times; an escape from the reality that is dreary in comparison.

He feels a little guilty for that, right now. Not just because Eddie is here and has no idea that he’s thinking disgustingly romantic thoughts about him, but also because his head should be filled with other, arguably more important affairs. Less pretty; less pleasant. Far more painful. The entire reason that Eddie is here at all, apparently.

“Aren’t you supposed to be nice to me right now?” He asks pathetically, hating the high whine of his own voice.

But it does work in softening Eddie’s features once more. He moves over onto the sofa besides Richie and squirrels an arm around his shoulders. It’s a little awkward and the fit isn’t quite right, what with Richie being so much broader and taller than Eddie, but Richie just shifts down further into the cushions until it’s more comfortable for them both. The result is Richie’s head tucked into the gap between Eddie’s shoulder and collarbone, Eddie’s hand a firm, encouraging weight that curls over his shoulder and down across the top of his chest. The intimacy of the moment is not lost upon Richie, but he cannot find it in him to move away from it, either.

It feels real now that Eddie is here. It had felt real when he had invited all of the losers to come, of course, and later when they had all accepted without any hesitation - but this. Eddie being here because Richie needs him, knowing that without Richie even having to voice it… it’s real.

“It’s going to be okay, Rich.” Eddie sounds so sure of it that Richie wants desperately to believe him. His voice is quiet but firm, almost earnestly so, head bent towards Richie’s so that the breath of each word ghosts along the nape of his neck, around the outer skin of his ear. In another world, it means more than a friend's comfort. “You’re going to be okay.”

When Richie wets the front of Eddie’s t-shirt with the evidence of his sadness, gray cotton darkening steadily with the flow of saturation, he tries to pull away with an apology thick in his throat. He doesn’t get far, Eddie’s hands surprisingly strong as they pull him back down, the rough pads of his fingertips brushing beneath Richie’s tired eyes, catching the tears that haven’t yet made their way down.

\---

Even with the sleeping pills Richie has been swallowing down dry every night, he sleeps better than he has in weeks. He wakes in the late morning, feeling well-rested, his head heavy from the release of emotions the night before. He’s never liked crying, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t do it; he does, more than anyone else he knows. Most of the time he feels better for it, even when he wakes up like he has now, with a head full of cotton and eyes in need of a cold compress, puffy eyelids and lashes tangled.

He makes his way from the bedroom, to the bathroom, all the way down the hallway to the kitchen, feet shuffling along the clean, light hardwood of the floor, still rubbing at his eyes even after having splashed his face with water in an attempt to liven himself up a little. 

Eddie is at the stove when he enters, and the domesticity of the scene before him has him stopping in his steps, catching his shoulder painfully on the doorway. He rubs the bruised skin through the stretched, faded shirt that he sleeps in, the colour of it lighter in patches from various stains and washes over the years. He thinks he should have worn something better, more suitable - pulled out those pyjamas his mom bought him for Christmas last year that he still hasn’t taken out of the packaging - but then that thought makes him feel weepy all over again, so he focuses on Eddie.

As if that’s any better.

Eddie, standing there wearing an oversized sweater that makes him look smaller than he is (because Richie isn’t an idiot; he knows how ripped Eddie is underneath all those stiff shirts and grandfather style pants), looking like he hasn’t noticed that Richie has entered the room at all. The entirety of his focus is on whatever it is he’s cooking - though, looking around at the mess of the kitchen, Richie isn’t sure he wants to  _ know _ what Eddie thinks he’s cooking.

There are cracked egg shells stacked neatly within one another like a cheap russian doll to the left of the counter, but the tidiness ends there. He can see a pan hanging precariously close to the edge of the counter; a loaf of sliced bread spread haphazardly out of the bag, like Eddie had meant to grab a few slices and wound up pulling the whole thing out instead. Richie’s pretty sure that’s oil slicking the surface, glinting under the glare of the sun which streams in through the tall windows on the opposite side of the room. 

He’d got this place for the view.

Here, the sun illuminates everything, basking it all in gold. He can see clearly the hairs on Eddie’s calves, thick and dark though more sparse than Richie’s own; his shorts barely reach his knees, flowing around legs that can only be crafted through running, and he’s got one finger in his mouth; just the tip of it, pinks lips wrapped around the knuckle joint. 

Richie’s knees disappear. He reaches out to grasp at the counter nearest to the door just in time before he topples completely, yelping; the pandemonium enough to have Eddie turning from the stove with a question clear in his eyes.

“Did you just fall?” He squints at Richie where he’s half kneeling and half holding himself up. 

Richie uses the time to pull himself completely upright, shaking his head hurriedly. “No. No, everything’s fine.”

Eddie shrugs, and then looks down at the finger that was just in his mouth, frowning deeply. “I think I burnt my finger.”

Richie moves in an instant, narrowly missing the corner of the counter digging into his hip. He wraps his hand around the bend of Eddie’s wrist without thinking about it, squinting as he inspects his finger. “Have you put it under water?”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Eddie grits his teeth, glare withering. He doesn’t pull away from Richie’s grasp. “Of course I did.”

“It looks okay,” Richie continues dubiously. He doesn’t know a thing about burns, but there’s barely anything there that he can  _ see _ \- just a slight ridge of skin rising above the rest that he doesn’t touch, for fear that Eddie will rip his head off. “What were you even doing?”

Eddie’s cheeks flag with rosy pink then, and he tears his wrist out of Richie’s hand. “I’m making breakfast, what the fuck does it look like?”

It looks like a bomb site, is what Richie wants to say, but he bites his tongue on the words, letting his eyes do the talking for him instead. He scans the room that was once his fairly organised kitchen, nodding slowly as he takes in the empty packets and pots and pans everywhere. He has no idea why Eddie would need all these pans. Apprehensively, Richie peers over Eddie’s shoulder to look down into the pan that he’s started tending to again.

“Is that supposed to be an omelette?”

“What do you mean ‘ _ supposed _ ’ to be an omelette?! It  _ is _ an omelette.”

“... That’s no more an omelette than I’m an omelette.”

Eddie throws the spatula aggressively down into the pot, causing Richie to jump back when the runny, yellow liquid within spits out towards them. “You think you could do better, jackass?”

Actually, Richie does. Richie  _ knows _ he could do better, because he does, quite frequently. But he only has to take one look at Eddie’s face to know that he’s maybe a little bit hurt, which wasn’t Richie’s intention at all. Dread swoops into his stomach and he steps back towards Eddie, towards the stove, one hand pulling loosely at the back of his sweater.

“Hey, no, no, this is fine. This is great.” He’s trying, Richie recognises, and it makes his chest ache, that someone would try for him. That  _ Eddie _ would try for him. Even if it’s only because he feels sorry for him. “Thank you. For doing this.”

A tense moment passes before Eddie is nodding, the action still a little more terse than Richie would like. By the time the two of them have taken their seats at the dining table with the (salvaged) omelettes dished up before them on the hand-painted dusky blue plates that Richie had only bought because he was told to, but that seem more worthwhile when Eddie voices his approval of them, the tension between them has evaporated into the air.

“Listen,” Richie says after a few mouthfuls. “I appreciate you coming early, but you really shouldn’t have. I mean… the funeral’s already planned and everything, so. It’s not like we have to do anything before the weekend.”

Eddie pauses with his fork to his mouth. “I know that.”

Richie blinks, “Then why -?”

“I would have wanted you there.” He says it in a rush, like the words can’t come out quick enough. Like he doesn’t really want to get them out but he has to. Richie knows the feeling. With a sigh, Eddie drops his fork back down to his plate, forcing his gaze to Richie’s from across the table before he speaks again, “I thought about it, you know? I thought about my mom, and - and I realised I would have wanted you there when she died.”

It’s not what Richie was expecting. He blinks again, a few more times, mouth agape and expression probably as dumb as they come, but Eddie doesn’t seem to notice. He still barrels on, as he always does.

“I mean, it was fucking miserable and you being there wouldn’t have changed that, but I would’ve wanted it anyway.” His shrug doesn’t look like it comes as easily as he wants it to appear. “I figured you might want it, too.”

As soon as Eddie says it, Richie realises that he  _ does _ . Eddie’s been here barely a day and Richie has already cried more than he has over the entire course of the last two weeks, and maybe he’s needed that more than he even realised. There’s his father and his sister, of course, but crying in front of them - with them - it’s harder, somehow. The grief clings to each and every one of them so that when they are together now everything feels heavy and shrouded in grey, and it’s too much, almost. Eddie watched him fall apart without judgement, because he’s done it before, and Richie knows that he would do it again. 

“Thanks,” he says, finally, throat thick with a multitude of emotions. “You didn’t have to, but thanks.”

And Eddie just smiles at him, small and sweet and completely at odds with the deep roll of his eyes, “Of course I didn’t, idiot. I  _ wanted _ to.”

He stabs at his omelette with his fork like the conversation is over and, just like that, it is.

\---

It’s only a few days between Eddie’s arrival and the funeral; even less between his arrival and that of the losers, who will all fly in the night before the ceremony.

Richie fills the short time they have together by taking Eddie around Chicago, even though Eddie resists at first. “ _ We don’t have to _ ,” he’d said, gaze imploring and words softer than they had any right to be. “ _ We can just stay in and do nothing _ .” Richie had known that he was giving him an out because the week was going to be draining enough for him as it was, but it wasn’t an out that he had wanted. There had been a time where Richie would never even have dreamed of having Eddie here, in his city, and he’s not willing to throw that opportunity away without giving it a second thought.

It proves to be a welcome distraction, too. After weeks of funeral planning with clinical precision, going through the various choices and decisions almost on auto-pilot, feeling mechanical in every action he took, this is something he can lose himself in.

He takes Eddie along the river, and they go to the observation deck to get a better view of the city. A day spent with the two of them arguing over which is better - Chicago or New York (Chicago, obviously), Eddie obstinate in his views but unable to hide the sheer wonder that distorts his features when they get that high up. Richie’s seen it fifty times before, and he can appreciate the side profile of Eddie’s face without feeling as though he’s missing out on the view. It’s just as beautiful and just as worth it, especially when Eddie tries to hide away as though he isn’t as impressed as he is, relenting only when they get their feet back on solid ground.

They skip the Art Institute of Chicago because neither of them know much about art at all, and Eddie doesn’t trust Richie not to take lewd photographs with any of the statues or paintings depicting the naked body (fair on some levels, and not on others), but spending their time together is the most important part of it for either of them anyway, Richie thinks. They don’t have enough time to explore the entirety of the city, but they do enough that the days are long and tiring.

Richie sleeps without the aid of pills for the first time in a while; surprised when this streak lasts for longer than a night.

The night before the funeral the group chat that they had created after Derry is abuzz with well wishes and confirmation from each of the losers in turn that they have touched down in the city. They’d all agreed before that they wouldn’t catch up with each other until after the funeral, something that Richie is still grateful for now; he knows that he would break down the moment that he saw them all again, and he doesn’t think he’s ready for them to all see him like that just yet. Tomorrow, undoubtedly, none of them will have a choice.

He swallows around what feels like a hundred shards of glass and every bit as painful.

He’s been putting this off for days - thinking about her. Before Eddie had arrived, it was all he could think about, and this has been the reprieve that he was craving. But there’s no escaping from the thoughts and the truth now, not when the funeral is just around the corner and he won’t be able to hide from it. 

“Hey,” Eddie’s voice comes from behind him, startling him. 

Richie twists his body around from where he’s situated on the edge of his bed, uncertainty painted all over his face when he sees Eddie hovering in the doorway, like he can’t quite decide whether he should come in or not. Eventually, he seems to settle upon a decision, feet padding across the carpet until he’s in front of Richie.

“Are you okay?”

It’s a simple question. Too simple, almost, for the occasion. Richie can’t help but laugh, a sorry little breath that does not sound joyous at all, the sound of it in juxtaposition to the act itself. He pushes his glasses up over his forehead so that he can press a hand over his eyes, the shake of his head the most that he can manage.

The bed shifts under the weight of Eddie sitting beside him. It’s an almost mimic of that first night, except his arm winds its way around Richie’s waist instead, and this time it’s Eddie who is resting his head upon Richie’s shoulder. His hair tickles at Richie’s nose, but he doesn’t move away from the touch, pressing closer into the warmth emanating from Eddie’s body against his side instead, taking comfort in this closeness that he had feared they would never have.

“Stupid question, huh?” 

Richie feels more than hears Eddie’s laugh, the way it pulses through his body and has his chest vibrating, despite it being more of a whisper of a thing than a full bodied display of humor.

“Kind of,” he sniffs, chuckling weakly when it only makes Eddie laugh more. “I thought you were the clever one.”

“No way,” He feels Eddie shake his head without lifting it from his shoulder. “That was always you.

Richie had been smart, he supposes. He had just never used it the way he was supposed to. He’d write essays on things that nobody had asked him about, instead of doing the work that they were assigned; things that he found interesting, over what the teachers wanted from him. Every time, they’d tell his mother that they couldn’t grade it until he handed in what they had asked for, and she would always tell them that they should; that maybe they should see what he had to offer, instead of dismissing it because it wasn’t what was expected.

God, he misses her.

He must say as much, because Eddie responds in kind, his arm squeezing reassuringly tighter around Richie’s waist.

“Yeah,” Eddie replies on a sigh. “I know. She was - she was a really good mom, Richie.”

She was. Richie lets out a hiccup of a breath that he can’t hold, letting his eyes close around the tears that well up within them like pools.

“I always wanted her to be mine.” Eddie confesses. He says it quietly, like he’s afraid that someone will be listening. His own mother, maybe, even though she’s gone now too. Long before Maggie Tozier left the world. “When we were younger - did you know that?”

Richie shakes his head wordlessly.

“I did. I thought I’d be happier if she was… I was jealous, sometimes, of how much she loved you… in the right way, you know? My mom never learned how to do that.”

He sounds sad, though not in the same way that Richie feels. It’s like a sadness that he has come to terms with in time. It still carves a hole deep into Richie’s heart, the soft tissue collapsing around a cavity created out of Eddie’s admissions. He feels a familiar spike of hatred towards Sonia Kaspbrak, even though he knows it isn’t fair; knows that she’s gone; knows that it isn’t his place to hate her on behalf of her son. But she never did love him right. They all knew that, he thinks, even back then. Nobody ever loved Eddie the way they - the losers - did. Richie moves his head backwards to look down at Eddie’s face, the moonlight streaming from the bedroom window casting shadows across his cheekbones, and he thinks that Eddie knows that too.

Maybe he’d be sad about it, if he didn’t have the losers back now.

Richie hopes their love is enough. He hopes it’s enough for Eddie, and he hopes it’s enough to get himself through tomorrow and the day after and the day after that, too.

“She was the best mom.” He says, his throat clicking softly when he speaks. “She would’ve - she would’ve loved you for a son, Eds.”

Eddie does look up at that, head rising sharply from its position on Richie’s shoulder, mouth twisting into a smile that almost looks hopeful. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Richie breathes. “Not in place of me, obviously, I’m always her number one… but as well. She’d have loved you as well.”

“Dick,” Eddie grins, punching him not so gently in the arm, and they shift apart, thighs still touching between the thin fabric of Eddie’s sleep shorts and the cotton of Richie’s pyjama pants, pulled out of the closet a day ago.

Richie expects Eddie to move then, to say his goodbye’s and goodnight’s and go back to the spare bedroom just down the hall, but he doesn’t. The cushion of his lower lip is caught between his teeth, a decision flickering across his face that hasn’t yet been made. When he releases his lip, the skin is redder than ever and plush from the use, Richie’s eyes dropping there and up before he can get control of it.

Fortitude hardens Eddie’s features. “You want me to stay here tonight?”

“Uh,” Richie frowns, moving back just to shake his head free of the sudden confusion he feels. “What?”

“Like, I could stay here,” Eddie repeats, his hand smoothing over the duvet spread beneath them as though to confirm what he’s saying. “Tonight. If you want.”

Richie should say no. The word crosses his mind three times over, but it isn’t what leaves his mouth. What leaves his mouth sounds like  _ yes _ , and it must be, because Eddie is nodding, his features softening once more as though all he had needed was that word to come from Richie.

He gets up from the bed just to move around to the other side, drawing the sheets back swiftly and climbing in, getting himself comfortable and settled. Richie doesn’t move for a moment, watching him in the dim light of the room, until Eddie is frowning at him and demanding he get in  _ because it’s cold as shit Richie, come on _ !

His entire body feels tense when he first slides between the sheets, feeling the warmth of Eddie’s body behind him. He lies on his side rigidly, trying to even out his breaths, but Eddie doesn’t seem to notice; he rolls on over, curving his body to the lines of Richie’s own, sliding an arm over his hips and waist just like he had done a few moments before. But they were sitting then. Now, they are lying together in this bed, and Richie doesn’t know what it means - knows not to think about it too much.

“Is this okay?” Eddie’s voice carries on a whisper, breath rising bumps across the nape of Richie’s neck, all the way down his spine.

He answers with a nod, once again not trusting himself to speak, and feels Eddie relax against him, practically melting against him as though there’s nowhere he’d rather be. Richie refuses to let himself follow that train of thought any further.

He isn’t used to this. Not falling asleep with someone, and certainly not being the one who is held; but he learns quickly that he likes it. Maybe that’s just because it’s Eddie, or maybe it’s just because he’s feeling decidedly fucking fragile, but in the cradle of Eddie’s smaller, more defined arms, he feels secure in a way he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager.

He falls asleep after Eddie, listening to the rhythm of his breaths, enjoying the sensation of his diaphragm rising and falling against his back. If he strains his ears, he thinks he can hear Eddie’s heartbeat, too.

\---

Richie’s hands fumble with the skinny, black tie in his hands, and he grits his teeth at his own reflection as he tries to work it into a presentable knot.

It’s no use. He’s been trying for what feels like hours, that is likely only minutes, but the tremor of his hands is preventing him from doing the simplest of things. He knows how to tie a tie. It’s, like, the first thing a guy learns when he gets to that age, remembers his father teaching him and growing impatiently tired of Richie’s fucking around for the better part of the lesson. But he can’t seem to get it now; his fists clench around the offending slither of material, wrinkling it until it looks out of shape.

“Rich, are you ready?”

He closes his eyes against the familiar voice, not having to turn his head to know who it is - Eddie, of course, leaning in through the open door.

He doesn’t have to say anything, in the end.

His eyes open at the first touch of  _ cold _ against his hand, and Eddie is right there in front of him, his own fingers reaching for Richie’s. He takes his time, prying each of Richie’s fingers gently from the tie, smoothing over the skin as he goes until the color comes back to them. He doesn’t look Richie in the eye at first, not even when he takes the tie from him and reaches behind Richie’s head to string it under his collar.

Eddie ties a perfect knot, because of course he does. He tugs at the end of the tie for good measure, and then presses it down into the shirt, patting just above the swell of Richie’s stomach twice as he does it.

“There you go.”

“Thanks.” Richie responds, a little shortly. All he seems to be saying lately is  _ thank you _ . He doesn’t think that this is a bad thing, per se, but he sure would like to find some other words in his vocabulary some time soon.

“I’m going to meet you there, okay?” Eddie is saying. “The car is coming to pick you up in about ten minutes. Your father and Rachel are already in it and on their way. I’ll wait until you go, though.”

“You’re not coming with me?” Richie wants to take it back in an instant, noting the surprise that seeps into Eddie’s eyes.

“No, Rich, I can’t come in the family car with you. But I’ll be there okay?” He tucks his fingers beneath Richie’s chin, forcing his head up so that their eyes can meet. Richie could resist, if he wanted, but he doesn’t because he doesn’t  _ want _ . It’s Eddie. He’ll do whatever Eddie asks of him, always. “I promise I’ll be there. Right with the rest of the losers.”

It’s stupid. Richie knows that Eddie can’t come in the car with him. It would look - strange, to everyone, and his father wouldn’t understand, but all Richie wants right now is to hold Eddie’s hand until the blood is cut off, as though somehow that will make all of this better.

He doesn’t say as much, and Eddie doesn’t remove his hand from where it is still cupping Richie’s chin. His fingers move maddeningly across the tender skin found there in something that would be described as a caress, if this was romantic, if they were that way inclined, if this was anything more than a friend seeing a friend through the darkest of times.

It’s comforting nonetheless. They stand there like that for who knows how long, two bodies curved towards one another. The knock at the door announces the arrival of the Tozier car, and they spring apart and into action.

Eddie squeezes Richie’s hand just before he exists through the door of his apartment.

His sister is already crying. Richie slides into the backseat next to her and lets her sink into his side as he pats her hair, a little awkwardly and a little mechanically, his own efforts to keep the tears at bay sinking steadily.

\---

Everyone loves Maggie Tozier.

Richie had always known this. Whether it was back in Derry or here in Chicago, she had that ability to make friends and allies wherever she went. The cemetery is full of people all dressed in black, which Richie thinks his mother would hate, but his father had insisted that at least some part of this be traditional.

The Church service has been a little smaller, before they had moved on out here. The losers had been there, sat a few rows from the back, Eddie right on the edge of the bench. Richie’s eyes had found his first and he hadn’t been able to return the smile, but he had tried. Looking at the rest of them all sat beside Eddie - Stan and his wife, Patty, Bev and Ben, Mike and Bill, Audra even though she was separated from Bill now and had never even met Maggie Tozier - Richie had known that would be the kicker. The overwhelming gratitude he had felt towards them had been as powerful as the pain, both emotions warring within him until neither had won out.

There had been hymns and some prayers, despite Richie knowing for a fact that none of them had so much stepped in a Church in years, and it had been fine.

It’s this that he finds the most daunting.

Standing here, around the grave built for her. It seems ridiculous, that a life comes down to this - a small coffin and a hole in the ground. His mother is worth so much more than this, he thinks, but he also know that these thoughts are stupid - that there is nothing else to be done but to lay her to rest with all these people who don’t love her half as much as he does but love her enough.

He’d volunteered to speak first back when they had been preparing everything, because he had known that he would not be able to sit there and listen to the speeches of his father and his sister without breaking down. It would be a lot harder to get through his speech with puffy eyes and a runny nose. Now that he’s here, though, he feels himself tremble with this fear of doing this, of standing in front of these people and trying to put into words how much his mother means to him. Meant to him. Means to him - he doesn’t think it has to be past tense just because she is gone.

The slip of paper in his hands crumples with the way they shake, so tremulous in nature, and he finds himself looking up into the crowd before him. A lot of these faces are familiar but a lot are not, and he’s searching for something - for someone - in particular, but he can’t see him. Probably, Eddie is near the back with the rest of the losers, keeping a respectable distance, but Richie wishes that he wasn’t, right now, he wishes he was -

Fingers curl around his wrist and he jolts at the entirely unanticipated touch, breath he hasn’t realised he has been holding leaving him in an audible rush when he comes face to face with Eddie. Eddie who has pushed his way through the tight knit crowd with steely determination to get to his side; who isn’t sparing a single glance for the people who are eyeing them with both curiosity and confusion; who is looking only at Richie, with something warm and real and reassuring in his eyes.

Richie nods, answering a question not posed.

He clears his throat. “My mom was the biggest pain in my ass growing up,” he starts, focusing on the way Eddie smiles at him and not the uncertain titters from the crowd, until everything fades but himself and Eddie and his mom. “But I paid her back in kind, and she loved me a whole lot for it…”

\---

After, when Richie thinks he has shed all the tears he can possibly shed, he is proven wrong. He finds the losers all waiting for him off to the side, and they waste no time in forming a huddle around him, all of them getting lost in one another until it is impossible to discern one from the other, a bundle of limbs and tears and love. His face is not the only one that is wet when they part, and he takes comfort in that.

He feels like he can really breathe for the first time that day when he is with them, when they are all back together again.

He wishes the circumstances were different.

They travel to the wake in three separate cars, though a part of Richie questions whether he should go at all. There is a deep part of him that wants to go back to his apartment, crawl into bed, and not leave until the sun has come up on a new day - but he knows he can’t. His mother wouldn’t want that. Maggie Tozier would have wanted a wake that went down in history, with all of her friends and family celebrating the wonderful life that she lived, and Richie can’t forgo her this one last thing.

They’ve hired out a function room where Went and Maggie used to dance, and Richie sees his father already there, sitting in the corner of the room, with his eyes distant. He won’t last long, Richie knows, and he vows to be a better son to him - to take care of him now that his mother is gone, because lord knows that she was the only who took care of them all. For now, though, he spies Rachel with his father, sees her nod when he catches her eyes, and lets the losers drag him off to a table large enough to house the lot of them.

“It was a really nice service, Rich,” Bill says, when they all have drinks in front of them.

“Your speech was lovely.” Bev nods, and she smiles at him sadly like she gets it, because maybe she does.

There’s a chorus of agreements, and then someone (Ben, maybe?) is raising his voice to cheer “ _ To Maggie _ !” and they’re all repeating it and drinking, and Richie has never been more relieved to have these people back in his life again.

Eddie is by his side, a place he has barely left all day, and he reaches across to clap a hand onto Richie’s knee and grip him when Richie turns to look at him. It’s a simple touch that says  _ I’m here _ and  _ I’ve got you _ and a million other things all at the same time, and Richie wants to drown in them for a moment. He wants to hear those words forever. He wants to believe that Eddie means it - and he does mean it. Of course he does. Eddie Kaspbrak who would fight for Richie as much as he would fight  _ with _ him, who would tackle boys five times his size if he thought they’d been harassing his friends, who would fly all the way from New York to Chicago three days early to be there with Richie through this, the hardest week of his life.

He just doesn’t mean it in the right way. Richie has to be okay with that.

Usually, he thinks, he is. But he’s already feeling  _ a lot _ , and the emotions are so heavy they’re almost suffocating.

He knocks back the rest of his drink - whatever the fuck it is, he doesn’t know, it was bought for him - and swallows some of the truth down with it.

Time passes in a blur of more drinks and embraces from strangers and not-strangers, and the music is playing. It’s something from the 80s that he remembers well as one of his mother’s favorites, and he’s standing up from the table suddenly, almost knocking his chair over as he does so.

Everyone looks at him.

“I want to dance.” He says. He’s a little drunk, but it’s fine. It’s his mother’s funeral; he’s allowed to be drunk.

“Are you sure-” Mike is saying, but Bev and Audra are quick to cut him off, already vacating their seats.

“Let’s dance, Tozier, show us what you’ve got.” Audra says, and Richie makes a mental note to thank Billy for not fucking this one up enough so that they don’t class Audra as a friend now, because she’s  _ great _ , honestly, and if Bill wasn’t with Mike, Richie would be berating him for letting her go.

Ben gets up to follow Bev, unsurprisingly, and there’s Patty, too. And then, surprisingly, Eddie follows after Richie, wearing a scowl that looks more like a pout when Richie quirks an eyebrow at him.

“What?” He hisses, arms folded across his chest. “Am I not invited?”

“Of course you are, Eds,” Richie beams at him, already reaching for his hand to pull him onto the area designated for dancing. “It’s a dance party. Everyone’s invited.”

For about thirty seconds, it’s perfect. They dance in a group, clumsy and messy, Ben being the best one of them all, and Richie being the worst along with Bev, but that’s probably more to do with the way they throw each other around the dancefloor than their actual talents. It’s not like the sadness is gone, but Richie can enjoy this moment, where he laughs and he jokes with his friends, and he can recognise that it’s not a bad thing for him to do this. It’s what Maggie would have wanted at her funeral - laughter and fun and  _ dancing _ , because oh, she could dance for days.

Then the song changes. Something slower and softer, no longer a tune that you can throw yourself around the room to. Elton John, Richie thinks, and he hums the opening line beneath his breath as people pair up around him; Audra and Patty and Ben and Bev. In the distance, he can see the rest of their table making their way across too, though Stan seems to be resisting just a little.

“Well,” Richie laughs, standing there in the middle of the room, not even swaying, as he turns to Eddie.

“Come here, idiot.” Eddie rolls his eyes, holding his arms out.

“Uh-”

“Are you going to dance with me or not?”

Maybe it’s the fact that was the song his parents danced to at their wedding, or the fact that it used to make his mother teary eyed with happiness, but Richie moves forward without complaint. The only hint of embarrassment he gets from Eddie is the flush prettily dusting high on his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose as he perches his hands tentatively on Richie’s shoulder; and then stronger, when he seems to realise that Richie’s arms are already around his waist.

They’re quiet for a moment, finding their rhythm. Richie doesn’t dare to look around, not wanting to see the expressions of those around him, and certainly not those of his friends who already know too much about Richie and his love for Eddie Kaspbrak.

Richie can’t take the almost imposing quiet that rains down on them for long. The sound of the music is there, the most present thing he knows, but the rest - the chatter and the laughter and the talk - fades into the background. “How wonderful life is while you’re in the world…” he sings lowly along with the music, tilting them both to the side slightly.

“She would have liked this,” Eddie hums, just as quietly. He doesn’t look up at Richie, but Richie can feel him smile with the closeness of their bodies pressed together. “Us dancing. I think she would have.”

Richie has to agree. “Me too. She would have taken photos though. We wouldn’t ever have lived it down.”

“Better than our prom photos. I can’t even remember who I went to prom with.”

“I can,” Richie rolls his eyes. “She was ginger.”

Eddie chops him across the chest for that, though the movement is stilted by their closeness. “She was  _ strawberry blonde _ .”

“Oh, so you remember now?”

“You jolted my memory.”

“Because I said she was ginger?”

Eddie glares at him, causing Richie to laugh; a real laugh, unlike the others so far he has forced out of himself today.

“This is nice, though,” Eddie continues like they were never interrupted. His face is still flushed, but that could be the heat of the lights and the room and nothing more. “Right?”

“It’s great,” Richie says honestly. “Of course it is.”

He doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to now, really, but he thinks that whatever it is, they’re both right. Eddie doesn’t expand and Richie doesn’t push, and they stay together dancing for the whole duration of the song. It feels like a thousand years; it feels like ten seconds. He wants more of it, all over again.

“Right. I’m going to get us a drink, okay?” Eddie pushes himself away. He looks distant, suddenly, like his mind is elsewhere, and he doesn’t wait for Richie to respond.

There’s Eddie coming closer, swooping in and leaving Richie confounded for all of five seconds, before he’s kissing him. Eddie is kissing him - his lips are on Richie’s, this tiny, soft peck of a thing that lasts no time at all before he’s pulling back and -

There’s something wrong with Eddie’s eyes. Richie can’t enjoy this moment, the bewildered happiness sliced through by the sharpness of the terror mirrored in Eddie’s features straight away.

“Oh-” Eddie gasps, a hand reaching up to cover his mouth, and he stumbles as he steps away from Richie. “Fuck, oh my god - I’m - I’m sorry -”

He turns and runs, but Richie feels rooted to the spot, his arms still stretched out in front of him, like some wrongly displayed mannequin.

A hand tugs at his, red hair coming into view framing a concerned face. “Richie? Did he -”

“Yeah.” 

“Okay.” Bev breaths out through her nose, and then tugs at Richie more firmly. “Let’s go get some fresh air, shall we?”

\---

“Did you know he was going to do that?” Richie all but explodes when he and Bev make it out into the chilly air, letting her drag him further along the building before she pushes him back against it.

She pulls a packet of cigarettes out from her shirt; hidden in her bra the whole time, Richie thinks, and also thinks she’s a genius. “Did I know Eddie was going to kiss you?” She says calmly. “No. I don’t think  _ he _ knew he was going to kiss you.”

“Right.” Richie says dumbly. He feels it, too - dumb struck, like he’s been walloped around the back of the head with something hard and heavy.

He wonders if that is actually what’s going on here. Maybe he’s been hit so hard he’s blacked out and this is just some kind of weird trip he’s going on in his own head - like,  _ thanks, brain, but I would have prefered something a little more fun _ . Without the death of the mother and the childhood crush and adult love running away something manic after kissing him for the first time. That would’ve been swell.

“Stop overthinking it,” Bev orders. She’s got her hand cupped around the end of the cigarette now against the breeze, making a second attempt to light it. “I can hear you thinking from here.”

Richie gapes at her, mouth opening and closing. “Well, fuck me Bev, sorry for thinking too loudly about the fact that  _ Eddie Kaspbrak just fucking kissed me _ .” His voice wavers and goes impossibly high at the end, and he can hardly blame the very obvious wince she makes.

“Yep. Got it. We all saw, actually. He’s going to be mad at himself.”

“Oh, shit,” It’s Richie’s turn to wince, and he tips his head back, knocking it against the wall with a thud. “He’s going to be freaking out, isn’t he? We need to find him.”

“We won’t find him,” Bev blows out a puff of smoke. “He’ll come back.”

“When the fuck did you get so wise?” Richie grunts at her, reaching across to steal the cigarette. “Gimme that.” He hasn’t smoked in a few months, but he figures he can’t be blamed for this one, and he takes a drag even as his eyes burn.

“Well,” Bev eyes him smugly. “He certainly won’t be kissing you again now, will he?”

The cigarette dangles limply between Richie’s lips as he tries to speak around it. “You think he’s going to kiss me again?”

“I just said he  _ won’t _ be, dumbass. He hates it when you smoke.”

“But if I didn’t, you think he would?”

“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask him.”

She’s smirking. God, she’s annoying. Richie loves her, but he would also quite happily throttle her right now, if he didn’t think Ben would follow him around wailing sadly for the rest of his days if he did, making him feel guilty about it every step of the way.

“Seriously,” she continues as though she has no idea that Richie is contemplating her murder right this second. “You need to talk to him.”

“He looked like he wouldn’t ever want to talk about that.” Richie feels a little sick at the memory of Eddie’s horrified expression clearly delineated in his mind.

Right before he had run away like Richie was something awful to be around, to kiss; he groans, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers before he can dwell upon that for too long and start doing something embarrassing like  _ crying _ again.

“Richie. He came all the way out here days ago. For you.” Bev looks at him, her lips twisting sympathetically now. “Talk to him.”

\---

Eddie doesn’t return to the wake the rest of the night.

Eventually, Stan convinces Richie to go home, telling him that they would get in touch if any of them heard from Eddie, and Richie doesn’t have much of a choice but to listen. The bitter truth - as hard as it is for Richie to swallow - is that Eddie probably doesn’t even want to see him right now, and Richie accepts that, even if he doesn’t think he holds any blame for what happened, really. He hadn’t kissed Eddie. He’s wanted it for months, for nearly a year, for longer still when they were growing up, but he had never acted on that in the knowledge that Eddie wouldn’t want it.

The fact that Eddie had been the one to kiss him is startling enough; further still when Richie acknowledges that Eddie seemed to have been caught off guard himself. As though he hadn’t quite realised what he was doing until it had happened and, by then, it had been too late.

The damage was done.

Richie can only hope that the damage is not deep or lasting.

Bill and Mike drop him off at his apartment on the way back to their hotel in the cab, which he thinks is as much for their peace of mind as anything, and he’s grateful for it; happy that he’ll have the chance to spend the entire day with them all tomorrow before they part ways once more. He doubts he will wake up feeling particularly prepared to enjoy the day, but they’ll make him enjoy it anyway; no regrets. It’s how they all try to live their lives now, he thinks, after coming close to death on at least two occasions. No regrets.

He doesn’t bother switching on any of the lights as he makes his way through the apartment, kicking his shoes off haphazardly in the hall, before he gets into his own bedroom. He manages to wrangle the tie from around his neck, before collapsing backwards onto the bed, fully intending to pass out fully clothed.

Unfortunately, he falls straight back onto something hard and sharp. It feels like there’s an elbow digging into the small of his back, which makes absolutely no sense -

“Get off me, oh my god,” Eddie’s hoarse voice comes from somewhere beneath him, and Richie sits up straight as though he has been electrocuted, eyes wide as he reaches across the bed to scrabble for the lamp on the bedside table.

With the warm glow of the light, he can see that it is definitely Eddie in his bed. Eddie curled up beneath his sheets with his eyes narrowed and fiery and his hair messy; tousled out of place of its usual style, as though he’d been sleeping just before he was interrupted by Richie.

“Have you been here this whole time?” Richie asks incredulously.

Eddie has the good grace to look shifty, squirming a little. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Richie swallows. His fist clenches and unclenches where it’s resting upon the hard rise of his thigh. “Don’t worry about it. I just - are you okay? You shouldn’t have left like that.”

For a while, Eddie doesn’t say anything. Richie practically has his back to him like this, and he’s contemplating getting up and leaving, taking the spare bedroom, but the bed shifts behind him as Eddie moves. 

When Richie turns, the sheets have fallen down a little to reveal more of Eddie; the shirt that he wears that Richie recognises instantaneously as one of his own. One of his own that he had worn this week and hadn’t gotten around to tossing into the laundry basket yet. He meets Eddie’s gaze, positive that his expression is too achingly open and too questioning and entirely too obvious all at once.

He’s thought of this. So many times. For so long he had tried  _ not _ to think about Eddie in a romantic capacity, feeling both rueful and pained every time, but the thoughts had never been easy to chase away. Slipping into his mind when he’s dreaming, only to bleed then into the day. He’s wanted this - this exact thing, to have Eddie in his bed, Eddie sleeping beside him, Eddie waking with him, Eddie wearing his clothes. Eddie looking sleepy and comfortable wherever Richie is.

He isn’t sure he can handle the heartbreak of not having this, now that he has seen what it could be like.

He hears himself speak before realising he’s doing it; his voice weak with an edge of desperation, even to his own ears. “Why’d you do it, Eds?”

The breath that Eddie takes is visible; tremulous. He licks his lip, but it looks like that shakes too. “I wanted to.”

Three words. Not the three words that Richie had always imagined would take his breath away when spoken to him by Eddie, but they do - they punch all of the air out of him so suddenly that it  _ hurts _ , his entire chest aching with the impact of those words. In his head, the words repeat like a mantra,  _ hewantedtohewantedtohewantedto _ , but Richie doesn’t have the strength to believe in them just yet. Even as he thinks this, his heart jumps in his chest - takes a beat that feels like hope, rising with this tide of sudden warmth and opportunity within him that he immediately wants to douse, lest it begin to flood his lungs and end in chaos.

“You wanted to.” he repeats dumbly, looking at Eddie. Just looking.

Eddie nods. He brings his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them, somehow making himself smaller. “Yeah, Rich. I wanted to.”

Not for the first time, Richie is struck by how brave Eddie is. How beautiful he is, sure, but how fucking  _ brave _ he is. To look Richie in the eye and tell him he wanted to kiss him - something that Richie has felt in return for so long but hasn’t once even considered gathering the guts to admit. 

His head feels light and airy; his body weightless. When he speaks, it sounds like his own voice is far away, as though his head might be in an impenetrable bubble. “Do you still want to?”

A pink tongue flicking out to dance across lips once more. Richie’s eyes are on Eddie’s lips in an instant. Even before Eddie nods fully, even before he lets a  _ yes _ tumble from his mouth, Richie is pressing forward, his body tilting forward on an axis that he has absolutely no control over.

Eddie is happy to meet him in the middle. He shuffles up the bed towards the centre of it, one hand grasping around Richie’s bicep as far as it can go, just as Richie’s own hand moves up to cup the side of Eddie’s face. It’s just that, for a moment. The two of them face to face, body to body, eye to eye. Richie presses his thumb to Eddie’s lower lip, watching as they part for him, before moving his thumb upwards to sweep from Eddie’s nose to the outside of his cheek. He thinks Eddie might be holding his breath, his grip on his bicep tight enough to bruise, maybe, and he doesn’t know which one of them breaks first.

It doesn’t matter, in the end, because it simply means that they’re kissing. Properly, this time. A kiss that both of them are aware of, that both of them want. The first press of lips is tentative and soft, coming together and apart a few times though neither of them moving far enough away to give the other any space. Richie doesn’t want space. He thinks maybe neither does Eddie, with the way he chases after Richie when he tilts back to test the elasticity between them, pulling straight back in.

Eddie tastes a little like salt and honey, and a little like the gin he’d drunk earlier at the wake. Richie cringes instinctively when he remembers the cigarette he shared with Bev, the thought making him want to recoil because Eddie hates it, Eddie  _ hates it _ \- but Eddie won’t let him move, kissing him back just as eagerly if not more so. His tongue maps out the places in Richie’s mouth that Richie had never thought Eddie would be, the hand not grasping his arm now placed on his thigh, like Eddie wants to get closer even though that is pretty much impossible.

A keening whine echoes in the back of Richie’s throat, instantly swallowed down by Eddie’s mouth. Richie’s hand still caresses the skin of his face, even as the kiss deepens, the two of them adjusting minutely so as to make the connection. It feels right - even when their noses nudge and their teeth clack and Eddie bites down a little too hard on the tip of Richie’s tongue. Even when they’re giggling into each other’s mouths, bubbling into full blown laughter, until they can’t possibly kiss anymore, their lips meeting briefly for seconds at a time in between their shared humor.

_ Especially  _ then.

“I love you.” Eddie says, easily. As easy as laughing, as easy as kissing, as easy as his fingers relaxing around Richie’s arm but never moving too far. “I love you.”

It doesn’t feel like a sucker punch. It doesn’t take the breath from him.  _ I know _ , Richie thinks, and it settles deep into his bones like coming home.  _ I know _ , he thinks, and it feels like slotting into place easily, without any drama or pain. _ I know _ , he thinks, and it feels like everything true and right in the world.

“I love you.” He grins, leaning down to skim his teeth along the sharp line of Eddie’s jaw. “I’m  _ in _ love with you.”

He swallows down Eddie’s breathless laugh of delirious delight with a kiss that won’t be the last by far. 

**Author's Note:**

> all feedback is appreciated! thanks for reading!
> 
> you can find me on twitter [@decdlights](https://twitter.com/decdlights) (where i'm most active) and also on tumblr [@lndntown](https://lndntown.tumblr.com/), if you fancy following me/chatting to me!


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